mattyblog

Blogging psuedo-anonymously

I write this blog under the name 'matty' and not my full name because I want to be slightly anonymous. Running a website and especially what could be called a "personal" blog under a real name that could come up in search results would make me feel the need to put on some kind of public face. I'd feel as if I'd have to sanitize what I write, or avoid topics such as mental health. I respect folks who write online about those things with their full chest and their real names but I'm generally a pretty private person. Having a little space between my online and offline self makes me comfortable enough to not second guess what I post here. It also has the ancillary benefit of making me feel a bit more mysterious, which is pretty fun.

I tried to start a website more than once over the last decade and completely bounced off of it each time. I work in a technical field, and a lot of folks in this field run their own sites and use their blogs to build an online presence that serves their personal brand. There is a lot of cultural pressure in the field to do the same. Folks not doing this sort of personal marketing are seen as foolish or not serious. It is very weird, but I found that cultural pressure affecting enough to try and do the same thing with my own sites. It turned running a website (which should be fun!) into a chore. I felt pressured to choose technical writing relevant to my field over any kind of personal writing or goofing off that could end up associated with my real name.

Truthfully, I don't like my job or my field very much after doing it for more than a decade and limiting the scope of a personal website to the field had me lose any publishing momentum I had very quickly every time I launched a site.

I'm happy to go just by 'Matty' this time around and write about whatever I want. Having this blog be pseudo anonymous has the effect of me feeling zero pressure to maintain any kind of professional facade. I don't feel like I have to write about any kind of specific topic and only write about what I'm feeling. It's great.